Double MMR injection to fight measles

Doctors are giving thousands of children two doses of the MMR vaccination
within three months of each other in an attempt to prevent an outbreak of
measles.

By Bonnie Malkin

7:38AM BST 19 May 2008

The number of cases of the disease has risen sharply after too few children were vaccinated in recent years because of fears over suspected links to autism and bowel disease.

In some areas, more than 40 per cent of parents have refused to vaccinate their children.

In south east London doctors have seen 226 cases since the start of the year, compared with a total of 167 for the whole of 2007.

Last year’s record of 971 cases across the country - the highest since records began in 1995 - is already expected to be broken this year.

All babies and toddlers are advised to have two doses of MMR but doctors usually administer the first dose at 14 months old and the second around the age of four.

Two doses of MMR close together have been shown to boost protection from the disease by 100 per cent.

In Lewisham, south London, only 58 per cent of children have the first injection by the age of five, while in Knowsley, Merseyside, the figure is 79 per cent. The national average is 87 per cent.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said all parents should ensure their children were vaccinated. He said: “The uptake is not as high as we would like it to be. Children need MMR.”

Dr Rachel Heathcock, a consultant in communicable disease control for the Health Protection Agency (HPA), said parents in south east London were being advised to give the second vaccination three months after the first.

“If measles spreads then this measure could be introduced nationally,” she said.

The outbreak had already spread from north London to Lewisham and Lambeth in the south of the capital, she said.

A spokesman for the HPA said government guidelines recommend the jabs are administered within three months when there is a sharp increase in the number of measles cases.

“When it reaches a certain number, guidelines advise to vaccinate closer together. It’s not a radical move,” she said.

Measles is an acute infection, which mostly affects children under five. One million children die from measles world-wide each year. Even in the UK, complications are quite common. They include a severe cough and breathing difficulties, ear infections, viral and pneumonia.

However, fears over the link between MMR and autism have led to a fall in the number of children being immunised.

These links have repeatedly been rejected by the Government, scientists and the Royal Colleges.

In February, in the largest study of its kind, a team at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London analysed blood samples from 240 children, aged 10 to 12, to see if the MMR jab caused an abnormal immune response, which could have triggered autism.

They studied children with autism, those without and those with special educational needs. No difference was found between the three groups.